


Journey Woman

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Anger, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Identity Issues, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: Candice has always been nice, everyone’s friend and big sister. She’s sick of being patronised and passed over, and that’s a problem for everyone? It’s not her problem anymore.
Relationships: Johnny Gargano/Candice LeRae
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Journey Woman

Candice Wrestling. They'd been so pleased with themselves, calling her that, like they weren't sticking her on top of her wedding cake forever. Johnny hadn't ever called her that. And Candice Gargano was only a legality. Everything she was, before she’d met Johnny and after, was built on a different name. The name WWE were happy to make money off of now, as long as they could verbally daisy-chain her to her husband with a cuteness that meant marketing, not respect or title opportunities.

She smiled, small and mocking. What clever little shoebox were they gonna put her in now then?

She didn’t have sunny blond hair anymore, loveheart purple looked great with her smiling black lips. But she still wore pink t-shirts, she still had powdered sugar under her fingernails because she still baked brightly-coloured cupcakes and sent some to her nieces. She didn’t apologise now when she beat her ‘friends’ in the ring, she made them scream after she won and liked it.

She still held hands with her husband and supported him from ringside and celebrated when he obviously won. He proudly did the same for her. She was still a team player, now for Team Gargano. And that was a problem somehow because she still wasn’t getting the title shot she deserved.

Because she wasn’t playing big sister to the entire NXT women’s locker room anymore? Oh, go talk to Candice, she’ll take time out of her own workout to help you train and look great in the ring and she won’t object when you get more TV time than her. Candice won’t mind sacrificing her opportunities at all, not when you guys are gonna be successes because of her. She’s a hell of a team player, what matters is what’s good for the company, she gets that.

What Candice got was Io Shirai trying to destroy her with a kendo stick and getting opportunities instead of punishment. She got everyone else talking about how amazing Tegan was as she dealt with Dakota, Bianca going to the main roster and Charlotte Flair taking applause as NXT’s Women’s Champion.

The NXT higher-ups didn’t say that they kept forgetting about Candice, but the message was obvious. And of course Tegan was bright and sunny and tough  **and** she had a cool accent. So who was Candice again? She wasn’t enough.

Tommaso was obviously more than enough. He’d systematically burned Candice’s husband to the ground but Johnny had rebuilt himself, better and stronger. Candice was so proud of him. And some fans had booed and jeered. They preferred Tommaso, who’d tried to cripple Johnny, who’d destroyed the best tag team either of them had ever been part of, who’d thrown Johnny’s wedding ring away. Tommaso only cared about the title belt and the fans  **loved** him.

Candice had wanted to tear into Tommaso herself. Back when she was still blonde, she’d asked Mr Regal for a match with Tommaso but he’d shaken his head, very polite but firm.

“We don’t do that here, as a rule,” he’d explained, 

Candice had realised then with a jolt that she was being patronised, by Mr Regal of all people. He’d never done that before. She’d thought he’d get it. And she’d realised then that she’d become used to being patronised by every other man here, telling her she looked pretty and that she must be a really proud wife. None of them talked to her about her wrestling.

Fuck their rules, and their perspective. They might as well have patted her on the head. Johnny had never done that. His own expectation was her love, support and success. His wins didn’t cancel hers out.

He said, “You’re the next level of the women’s revolution.”

And he meant it.

Candice didn’t wear his name or logo on her gear. He never asked her to. She wore her own name, her own logo, her own colours. Now she wore more black but the colours stayed bright, telling everyone she was still Candice. This was for her own good, no one else’s. She was no one’s stepping stone anymore.

No, she was a bitch now, she was poison, the Poison Pixie. It was as patronising and small as Candice Wrestling. But poison killed, fast or slow, and Candice wasn’t slow-acting anymore. They weren’t going to stick her in a cake box and they weren’t going to make her disappear. Every day, she and Johnny took the attention they’d deserved for years.

Candice got her hands on Keith Lee and made him suffer. She hoped Mr Regal was watching, especially when she kept beating down Mia too. It was what happened to anyone who thought they could mock Johnny and Candice, like Johnny and Candice weren’t serious title contenders because they were being totally honest, like that honesty was just bitching and exaggerating and don’t talk about it, take it. They  **were** , finally.

She wore black leather with pink cotton, lilac hair with black lipstick, she stretched her opponents until they screamed and she smiled and told Johnny she loved him. She made dinner and sometimes she ordered take-out. No one patted her on the head or asked her to look after the new kids anymore. No one looked past her. They couldn’t look away.


End file.
